For travel documentary videographer Michael Murphy, roaming out of his comfort zone is what makes him most comfortable. The award-winning West Seattle resident has made 185 documentaries worldwide for www.tripfilms.com. He shoots for Lonely Planet TV online, and others, including his own Travel On Productions.

Murphy said he looks for the “unknown parts of well-known destinations.” That may include Yosemite, Amsterdam, or Iceland. He is being modest, because his compact digital high-def Canon has also taken him to unknown parts of destinations that are not so well-known, like Antarctica, Easter Island, and last year, the tucked-away Himalayan nation of Bhutan.

All his reports are viewed online. Tripfilms can pay him because their website makes money with ads. And while short films nominated for Academy Awards run around 15 minutes, Murphy’s documentaries last just a fraction of that.

“The attention span on the Internet is about three minutes,” he said, adding, “I can tell if a travel video will be any good within 30 seconds.”

Murphy is 48, but with his youthful charisma appears to have fewer miles on him than that. A successful construction worker, he set down his hammer and nails and attended 911 Seattle Media Arts Center for video production to pursue his dream of making a career of traveling, his life-long hobby and passion.

Murphy recalls, “I asked my wife, ‘Are you ready for this?’ She said, ‘Yes, if it’s going to make you happy.’ I said, ‘Well, let’s find out.’”

Traveling has made both Michael and his wife of 17 years, Robin, very happy. In fact, before he turned pro, they got married spontaneously at the base camp of Mount Everest.

“I was going to ask her to marry me there,” he said. “This girl belonging to the group we were hiking with said, ‘Why don’t you two get married?’ This was just before I was going to propose. So we did. They found us a lama, or holy man, from a local village to marry us. My mom was thrilled that I just got married. But Robin is her mom’s only daughter and she wanted a big white wedding and all this. I said, ‘Well, I saved you $30,000.’”

Now they journey together when possible, for business and pleasure, and some education thrown into the mix as they tote their son, Justin, 8, along the unbeaten path too.

“I buy Justin toys, whatever he wants, when we travel, but the last day we have him give toys away,” said Murphy, who uses this as a way to teach his son values.

“Just before we left Thailand Justin and I sat together in the car for an hour and just watched kids playing. He asked me if he could hand out some Cokes we had which he did. He didn’t speak Thai but started kicking their soccer ball around with them, having fun.

"In India you see these little kids running down street with a stick and a tire, or they’ve got a little plastic bag we’d put sandwiches in, and that’s their kite.

"As Americans I think that one thing we lack in our culture is that most Americans don’t travel abroad as much,” said Murphy. “I’m not knocking anybody for it. But if you travel and see how others live in other parts of the world you learn to appreciate what we have here immensely. Also, things over there are not always the way we think it is, especially in third world countries. I meet more Europeans, Australians, and a lot of Asians (not as many Americans) on my travels.”

Murphy acknowledged that the recession has limited his paying travel gigs and he has picked his hammer back up for some custom construction work. However, he won all four “Trippy Awards” through Tripfilms this year, filmmaker of year, most inspirational video, best family video, and best destination series. His prize, a trip with Robin to China with a side trip to Mongolia and, yes, they will sleep in a yurt.

“The award was based on the body of my work,” he said proudly. “I was stoked just with that, getting nominated from my peers.”

His screen name at Tripfilms is “railaybay” named after his favorite beach in Thailand, where he has visited frequently for 20 years.

“I went to Thailand three weeks after the tsunami when everyone else was documenting disaster,” he recalled. “I said, ‘CNN is ‘doing’ devastated towns. OK. We’re not doing that. Let’s show the positive. Lets do story on Railay’s recovery.’

“Tourism stopped after the tsunami and no one was going there. I wanted people to come back. The people there depend on tourism, and everyone there knows me. We're all friend. I’m very proud of the story I told.

“Access to this planet has changed dramatically and we no longer experience complete isolation,” he said. “People visit remote areas and complain, ‘This is not how it used to be.’ But you cannot deny change to these countries. You can’t tell a nation to keep it the way it was for us. That’s not going to fly.”

To view Michael Murphy’s films for free go to: www.tripfilms.com and search “railaybay.” You can also go to YouTube to find many of his films under his real name, or "Destination Unknown," the name of his series, where you can view, “Trouble in Paradise” about garbage such as plastic bottles, beer cans, and cigarette butts that tourists leave on Railay’s beaches for the tide to carry away.